To think it's polite to not do all of this when planning a wedding

[hibbledibble]

When couples plan a wedding, it seems like often there is little thought given to how easy it will be for guests to attend.

There are three things which can make it difficult for guests to attend a wedding:

1. having it in the middle of nowhere (so guests need to travel, and book one or two nights of accomodation as a minimum)
2. having it on a weekday, especially in the middle of the week (so guests need to use annual leave, or take unpaid leave)
3. not inviting children (childcare costs and logistics)

Doing one or two of the above is forgivable, but aibu for thinking it's really inconsiderate to do all three?

I do agree with you on midweek. It’s much cheaper for the bride and groom, but add up the daily rate for all guests using the day as holiday and I bet it far exceeds getting married on a Saturday.

On the children front I don’t ageee if I had invited everyone’s children there would have been 40 children in attendance and we didn’t have room in the venue nor did I want it becoming a kids party. Plus I wanted adults to let their hair down and enjoy. I never get offended when invite excludes kids.

I'm out of step with the majority of mn on this, maybe cos I'm older?

My wedding was held in a central location (guests all over uk & even some from Europe, America and Australia), on a Saturday and children were very welcome. The advice in bridal magazines was expect for 1/3-1/4 of guests to decline - which we accounted for, except that's not what happened we had literally 2 decline and they were both health related! 1 was someone who initially accepted but had to rescind as their partner had a stroke in the run up to the wedding.

There's an idea now that weddings are ONLY about the couple getting married.

I was raised (as was my then fiancé, and my friends and relatives of similar age marrying around the same time) that it wasn't just about the couple, it was also the joining of 2 families and that the couple are HOSTS not deities!

As hosts you do what you can to ensure your guests have a good time, given they are making the time and effort and possibly spending a good amount of money - joining you to celebrate.

We even sourced/organised accommodation for those coming from a distance including a caravan site for a few who had motor homes and that suited them to come that way and stay in them.

The marriage didn't last yet the wedding still gets compliments over 20 years later!

You can't please everyone on everything but you try to please most people on most things.

If you don't want to be considerate of guests then have a very small immediate family only wedding or elope!

Re "why saturdays" I think this goes back to when most working people had weekends off but you couldn't in England and Wales get married on a Sunday due to it being the sabbath and at that point you could only marry in a registered place of worship or registry office, also because you could only marry between 8am and 6pm so late on a Friday was out too.

If you aren't considerate of guests needs you can't complain if they decline the invite.

We're getting married in London. Most of our family and friends live in London, so our decision to do that was based on ease of travel for the majority of our guests.

We have also sent out evening invitations to people living as far away as Norway which I realise sounds absolutely nuts -but politeness and family politics ( and lack of funds to invite them to the whole day) means we felt people should have the opportunity to decline rather than not be invited in the first place. For example, Norway guest's brother ( also invited), lives three miles from the venue, and for all we know might be visiting at the time of the wedding so not totally ridiculous to invite him, but didn't want to risk a brotherly fall out if we didn't.

We are also having the wedding on a Saturday as most of our family and friends are 9-5 Monday to Friday types, so we've sucked up the extra costs to make it as easy as possible for them.

I've been to enough middle of nowhere/ inflated hotel price/ destination weddings over the years to have wanted this to be as hassle free as possible. We are paying for transport between ceremony and reception as well for the same reason.

You can't please everyone, but you can try and see your day through the eyes of your guests.

DH and myself have always worked in retail. It was more likely for us and some of our guests to get a Wednesday off work than it would a weekend! I think most people who work 9-5 just don't get that there are so many jobs out there where weekend hours are busier so less chance of booking them off.
I don't think the bride and groom should fall out with others if they can't attend, but they should do what is their ideal wedding, it's their day.
If I could go back in time we'd have eloped to Greece and not invited anymore. Too many people complaining that it's wasn't their ideal location, time, date, guest list, menu etc 🙄

The wedding is not held for the guests, it's held for the couple.

How absolutely joylessly selfish. To me, it was totally all about getting as many of our friends and family together as possible so they could celebrate with us, and it was all about the guests and their comfort as a priority.

If you don't want to be considerate of guests then have a very small immediate family only wedding or elope!

This.

I agree with you OP. I'm the youngest in my family, so we had a friendly wedding so my cousins could all attend with their kids. It's just polite to be considerate of your guests.

It's like when you have a couple who live in the southeast of England, decide to get married on the Outer Hebrides on a week day during term time, when most of their close family is teachers and decide that they want no guests under 18 even though most of their family has kids. It's crazy and selfish.

And it's easy to say, don't attend, but it's very hard to say no when it's a close family member getting married and you have to spend money you can't afford to attend.

Ha, ha, I meant child-friendly wedding, but it autocorrected.

I can see that the combination of middle of nowhere and no kids is a really tricky one because an overnight stay is likely. Obviously not everyone can find childcare for overnight especially if it's a family wedding so all babysitter options might be there too.

Weekday weddings- I really like Friday weddings and with enough notice, any day is doable but again the middle of nowhere thing makes it trickier as more time off might be needed.

Maybe the couple really wanted that venue and midweek was all that was available for a long time. Or maybe it's much cheaper on a week day so it made is affordable for them.

I don't think any of their choices are unreasonable but they might make it harder for someone to attend.

And there is something that leaves a bad taste in the mouth about being invited to something that is genuinely, obviously, super difficult for you to attend. It so blatantly shouts either 'we don't care if you come' or ' we haven't bothered to think about your needs'.

Invitation not summons, yes yes, but most people on getting an invite spend a bit of time and energy thinking whether they could do it. Because it does feel a tiny bit rude and selfish to decline, most people would want to at least try to be a good guest and celebrate with their friends if possible.

Getting an invite which is evidently a massive pain to organise is worse than not getting one - the bride and groom have 'invited' me to a load of logistical hassle and 'invited' me to spend emotional energy turning them down gracefully.

Hmm.
DH and I married on a Saturday, in the relative middle of nowhere (not the kind of middle of nowhere that necessitates an overnight stay, although some chose to [it's a common weekending location], but not somewhere you'd just pop over to for the afternoon) and invited no kids except DD.
One friend contacted us to ask about their 4month old. We were fine with him, mostly because we trusted them to keep him quiet or step out if he started fussing. Everyone else basically said "oh good, a night out!"
(From what I remember, little dude just chilled through the ceremony then spend the reception cuddle-surfing and waving breadsticks)

We expected more people to decline, but only two couples did, due to expense, which we'd expected, given they live in Holland and we're in Australia.

It's THEIR wedding & they can do whatever they want. If you don't like it or can't go, then don't. Simple.

However, if they make you feel bad for not going, then that IS out of order.

I agree OP. It’s easy to smugly type on MN ‘just don’t go’, but over here in the real world you know that actually in lots of cases a couple WILL be offended if you don’t go. Or you might love the couple and be desperately sad not to attend. I find remote, mid week weddings very frustrating for this reason.

We were invited to a wedding like that last year- so DH and I would’ve had to take annual leave, pay for a hotel for 2 nights, be away from DC, and my DM would’ve had to take 2 days off work to care for DC.

The couple kept talking about how much money they were saving (£5k), but actually I think all they were doing was passing the cost on to their guests. When you add up how much all the annual leave alone was ‘worth’, it would be more than £5k.

I didn’t go, but DH did the (ridiculous) drive there and back in a day to save his annual leave, and also save us the hotel costs.

Not everyone works 9-5. My wedding was midweekand child free and worked really well for most of our guests.

Our families are farmers and my friends are shift workers or Self employed. I think in total 2 people has to use annual leave and the family with school age kids said it worked well as the kids were in school so only needed after school childcare.

One couple said they couldn't come as it was a 3h drive for them and it was hard to get childcare for their preschool age kids but that was fine with us and they didn't complain and we haven't fallen out.

Only kids were DD Dneice and a friend who had a 8 week old who was breastfeeding came to the ceremony and breakfast but left early - her choice so her husband could completely let his hair down

Yep.

If you want people to remember your wedding fondly, then you do have to think about what is practical for the guests! It is basic hosting. Your friends and family are not props in your barbie wedding but actual people.

It's particularly hard when close family do this. There is no way in most circumstances where they would actually forgive you if you said you could not go.

I am amused at how many people have assumed a midweek wedding is fine if given enough notice. It totally depends on the job surely?

A niece on my DHs side did this a couple of years ago. It was a venue a long way from where the couple lived, on a Friday, and no children. Fortunately my DDs are grown up and we’re invited, but we all had to take a day off work and had to book accommodation so with the travel and hotel it was an expensive event for us. I felt bad for the people who were invited only for the evening and had to travel so far for a few hours (although I accept they could have declined).

Yes I agree it's awkward. But its an invitation and not a summons. It will refect in many declines I'm afraid .

I much prefer child-free weddings (my children prefer them too), but I think most understand that if you have a child-free one, some people won't be able to come.

I wouldn't mind taking AL to go to a wedding, although we went to a Monday one a couple of years ago and that just felt a bit odd.

I think too that the couple can do what they want and guests are free to choose whether they attend or not

It's their wedding, so they can do as they choose. Either attend or don't, but don't expect that they should do thinks to convenience you if it goes against their wishes/budget.

The flip side of this is how demanding and entitled some guests can be. I've heard of some who expect hotel rooms reserved and free transport to the reception.

In our case travelling was unavoidable because most of our guests lived a distance away. We also had a Friday wedding because the Saturday slots were booked up into the far future and we didn't want to twat around for a year waiting for a free Saturday.

I think as long as your guests are well hosted to make up for their troubles it's down to them to decide if they can make it.

I think it's genius.

Invite everyone so they all feel special.
Know most can't and won't come so keep the costs down

As everyone has said it's an invite not a summons. If you can't go then say you can't. If you wanted to really go you'd find a way. I've been to plenty of weddings because it's 'convenient' for me to go. Ive enjoyed them. But I wouldn't have gone to most of them at a high cost for accommodation or weekday etc.

I have had friends be upset I have declined due to a combination of the above. One won't talk to me anymore as a result. (Difficult to reach abroad location, when I had a newborn)

Well, they sound like selfish, inconsiderate fuckwits then and probably no great loss.

It is perfectly reasonable for the couple to do all 3 of what you described, so long as they are prepared for the wedding party to involve only themselves, the catering team and the band.

I think it's genius.

Invite everyone so they all feel special.
Know most can't and won't come so keep the costs down

Yes, I was thinking "ooooh, it's just like an elopement, except no-one gets to take the arse...".

In my opinion the bride and groom should do what works for them. After all they are who the wedding is for.
As it happens we got married in the centre of town, on a Saturday with children welcome (we'd have excluded half our families if we'd done that but some people chose to leave their kids at home) but we did our wedding our way and I would support everybody else doing the same.

Easy enough when it’s friends who aren’t super close but my BF did this and then asked me to be bridesmaid and my husband to be best man.

I had a newborn who was BFing, a toddler and an older child who was starting school the day before the wedding.

The destination was a glamorous block of exclusive villas in another country.

We did consider how we could swing it (pay for kids and my parents to also fly over and stay at a nearby hotel but not attend wedding) but it just became Ridiculous cost wise plus all the annual leave for us and my parents (they both work FT). So we declined- well in advance so they could ask someone else.

My BF told me I was selfish and hurtful and hasn’t spoken to us since. This was two years ago.